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On Being Alive

Life, you’re beautiful (I say)
you just couldn’t get more fecund,
more befrogged or nightingaley,
more anthilful or sproutsprouting.

I’m trying to court life’s favour,
to get into its good graces, 
to anticipate its whims.
I’m always the first to bow,

always there where it can see me
with my humble, reverent face,
soaring on the wings of rapture,
falling under waves of wonder....


This is the opening of "Allegro Ma Non Troppo," a poem by Szymborska. The speaker is a powerless courtier; life itself is Henry VIII. You try to make the King happy. 

The speaker thinks she can please life itself by being appropriately joyous, soaring "on wings of rapture," falling "under waves of wonder." If you demonstrate enough wonder and rapture, you might impress God, and then God might reward you with an easy pathway.

Of course life doesn't actually work this way, and it's comical to imagine we can exert any influence over God. But we all do this. We all approach our days with a sense of cosmic bargaining.

One irony is that the things we want to avoid often turn out to be helpful (in strange ways), and things we eagerly anticipate can turn out to be downers. So, when Sondheim wrote "Being Alive," he had Bobby wish for the (ostensibly) "bad" things: "Somebody, hold me too close. Somebody, hurt me too deep. Somebody, sit in my chair....and ruin my sleep..."

So sad that it's funny (and vice versa). Ah, life!
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  1. UnknownOctober 22, 2019 at 2:09 PM

    Dear Daniel,
    Thank you for sharing the poem. I do love Szymborska.
    Me thinks that, if G-d exists (which on my good days I do believe), Sh/e listens to us. Isaac Luria, a Jewish mystic who lived in the 1500s, wrote that G-d contracted from Itself into Itself (I enjoy referring to G-d as It on occasion) in order to make space for us to exist, as we would otherwise be overwhelmed by Its presence. Yet, though we live in Its absence, the space Sh/e 'left' us is still permeated by particles of the Divine; and we 'water' them consistently we might experience moments of bliss or enlightenment, as well as draw the necessary strength to manage the deeply anxiety-inducing experience of being in the world (with death as the only true certainty, ha, ha.)
    Cheers ;-) !
    Adolfo

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    Replies
    1. ReaderOctober 22, 2019 at 3:36 PM

      I think, if there's a God, God's listening skills are questionable! I like the last lines of the poem (which I didn't quote) .... "I tug at life by its hem...Will it stop for me, just once, momentarily forgetting to what end it runs and runs?" I like that the poem ends with a question. Uncertainty seems like a good ending.

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  2. UnknownOctober 22, 2019 at 2:13 PM

    p.s.
    Most importantly, if G-d exists ,Sh/e refrains , as an act of love, i.e., so as to preserve for us the gift of choice, from interfering with our lives (though 'miracles' do occasionally happen, me thinks.) This said, if G-d exists, It ALWAYS SUFFERS WITH US, NEAR US. Deeply. Truly. Yearning for us.

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